I’ve only been a vegetarian around 7/8 months now, well, when I say vegetarian i’m actually a pescetarian, in other words a sloppy vegetarian who still eats fish. In my short time of not eating any meat at all, i’ve come to notice that a lot of restaurants/cafes/takeaways don’t really cater for vegetarians. Fed up of going for a meal and only being able to have Veggie burger and chips? My partner hasn’t ate meat since he was a young child, in his words this is because he “doesn’t see it as food” which is fair enough, also fair enough if people do want to eat meat, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion obviously. But what I do find strange is that most people (or atleast most people I know) are brought up without even knowing about being a vegetarian, they eat meat as that’s what they’ve always known. Thinking about it logically, it wouldn’t really be any more difficult to cater just as many V options as there is not suitable for V’s. Another thing i’ve noticed is that if you don’t eat meat, most restaurants assume you eat cheese (if not a vegan) I don’t understand why they think this? My partner doesn’t like to eat meat/fish/cheese/beans/ and many more, he is a fussy eater, but I still feel for him when we go for a meal, and all he can have is veggie burger and chips. If you eat fish, like me, you’re a bit luckier as there is always the famous fish&chips option (Y) And yes, fair enough there is vegetarian restaurants, but they aren’t as common as normal restaurants, and why should you have to go out of your way just to eat what you want, when others don’t have to, huh?

Something that absoloutely disgusts me about some takeaways, is that they don’t always display a V sign, so you have to ask, which is perfectly fine, but when you’re answered with ‘yes, it’s suitable for vegetarians’ and then you go back another time and are told it’s not, it’s terrible.

I think there should be more options available for vegetarians, they should be able to go to a restaurant without assuming there’ll only be one thing, if not nothing, that they can have.

Imagine how nice it would be to walk in and look at a menu, and everything had a normal option and a V option, for example, Roast dinner-Quorn roast. Spaghetti bolognese-V spaghetti bolognese. Beef lasagne-Quorn lasagne. Not just, veggie burger and chips, cheese and tomato pizza, cheese and tomato quiche, macaroni cheese…(see where i’m coming from about the cheese part?)

I imagine vegans think like this too, and it’s probably even more difficult for them.

I know there will be some people who will read this and think “But it’s your choice if you don’t want to eat meat” but we could easily reply ” but it’s your choice if you want to eat meat.”